1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a power supply control architectures for use in information processing equipment and, more particularly, to power save control techniques.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as information processing apparatuses decrease in size and thickness, portable information processing equipment hand-carriable by users, such as, so called notebook personal computers, becomes important more and more in the market and has widely spread in today""s business scenes. In those circumstances where AC power is not available, the information processing equipment typically including such notebook computers will be electrically driven by rechargeable batteries loaded therein. It will be desirable for most users that the information processing equipment run longer before the battery runs down.
An approach to lengthening or maximizing the battery drive time period is to precisely manage or control the electrical power being consumed by a monitor display device of the information processing equipment. One typical power-saving control/management scheme has been disclosed in International Patent Publication No. 508831/1996. A power-save control disclosed in the Publication is designed to put a display device into a low power-driven mode after an input device of the information processing equipment is kept inactive for a predetermined length of time period. More practically, the related art equipment uses a timer to monitor or xe2x80x9cwatchdogxe2x80x9d the operation state of the input device for setting the display device to its power save mode.
Power-saving control in prior known information processing apparatus indirectly deals with electrical power being presently consumed by the apparatus. For instance, the power-saving control sets the apparatus into power-save modes in cases where any inputs from an associative input device are absent for a predetermined time period. However, this related art approach does not reflect the exact consumptive power of such apparatus directly.
The related art approach lacks any means for directly monitoring the consumptive power state of the information processing equipment. The related art is an xe2x80x9cindirectxe2x80x9d power saving control technique.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide improved electronic equipment. It is a particular object of the present invention to provide a power save control device for use in electronic equipment with a plurality of operation modes different in consumptive power. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the foregoing objects among others, are achieved by providing an electronic equipment comprising means for measuring electric power consumed by the electronic equipment and means for switching between the plurality of operation modes based on a predefined condition of the consumed electric power.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide an improved power save control method for use with electronic equipment having a plurality of operation modes different in consumptive power.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the foregoing objects among others, are achieved by providing a power save control method comprising the steps of a step of measuring electrical power being consumed by the electronic equipment, and changing an operation mode to another operation mode based on a predefined condition of the consumed electric power.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide an improved information processing apparatus having a plurality of operation modes different in consumptive power.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the foregoing objects among others, are achieved by providing an information processing apparatus comprising means for measuring electrical power consumed by the information processing apparatus, means for determining whether it satisfies a predefined condition in accordance with the consumed electric power measured by the measurement means, and means for switching between the plurality of operation modes based on a predefined condition of the consumed electric power.